PUBLISHED BY
FRED HARVEY
WICHITA, KANSAS
© 1914, BY FRED HARVEY
"Watch Wichita Win"
"Watch Wichita Win" is the city motto that has been adopted by Wichita
and there is every proof that the community is justifying it. In 1900
Wichita had a population of 25,000; today its population exceeds 63,000,
and there are good grounds to believe it will soon be a city of 100,000.
The location of Wichita was not an accident. Long before the white man
came the Indians chose the junction of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas
Rivers as a meeting place from which to conduct their campaigns and
hunting expeditions into the Southwest territory. Before the railways
reached Wichita, it was a center for the cattle trade of Oklahoma and
Texas. In 1872 the first railway train entered Wichita over the Wichita
Southwestern, a branch of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, and the city
became at once a distributing point for the Southwestern country.
Today Wichita is served by six trunk lines, reaching into Western
Kansas, Eastern Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Mexico.
The development of Wichita in the last ten years has been many-sided.
Perhaps its most important growth has been in the live stock and grain
markets. In 1912, 14,465 cars of grain came to the Wichita market and
10,759 cars of live stock were received at the Wichita Union Stockyards.
Wichita is the largest broom corn market in the United States, parts of
Oklahoma and Western Kansas being peculiarly adapted for the growth of
broom corn. The city's standing as a distributing center is evidenced by
its large number of jobbing houses, with business covering Southern
Kansas, Oklahoma and parts of Texas and New Mexico. There are more than
a hundred jobbing houses located here. Among these, ten firms deal in
agricultural implements, six wholesale grocery firms, three dry goods
jobbers, three wholesale drug houses.
Surrounding Wichita is one of the great wheat districts of the world and
this fact, with the city's superior transportation facilities, is
largely responsible for the milling industry. The city's flouring mills
have a capacity of 7,000 barrels a day and their product is shipped to
California and to New York, to Oregon and to European ports. This branch
of Wichita's manufacturing and commercial industry is growing steadily.
Eight hundred men are employed in sash and door factories. In foundries
250 men are employed.
The faith of Wichita's builders is shown in its wide streets. In the
residence district a large portion of the street has been converted into
parking and at many points branches of the trees meet in the middle,
forming arches.
In public improvements the city is remarkably progressive. It has eleven
parks with an area of 416 acres, and a public gathering place, known as
the Forum, with a seating capacity of 5,500. In 1911 it ranked eighth
among all cities in the United States in the area of new paving. Its
office buildings--among them 10-story structures--are built on most
modern lines; building permits in one year reached seven and one-half
million dollars.
The water supply of Wichita comes from cylinders sunk forty feet beneath
the bed of the Big Arkansas river. The water flows through a deep body
of gravel before entering the cylinders, providing a supply of unusual
purity. Air pumps syphon the water from the cylinders to cement
reservoirs, where it is aerated before passing into the city mains.
The educational facilities of Wichita are complete. A new high school,
the building costing $200,000, is at the head of the public school
system. Friends University, Fairmount College and Mt. Carmel Academy
cover the field of higher education. The main building of Friends
University cost $265,000.
In its physical appearance, in the class of retail and wholesale
business buildings and public structures, such as the city hall,
government building and schools, Wichita gives the impression of a city
twice the population. The completion of the New Union Passenger Terminal
Station, with the elevation of railway tracks, adds greatly to this
feeling. This terminal work cost two and one-half million dollars and
was completed early in 1914.
In this book are illustrations of the new Passenger Terminal, of the
business and residence sections of the city and of some of the more
important public buildings--the whole a true picture of one of the most
aggressive cities in all the Southwest.